


Untitled (Kirk Gen)

by rsadelle



Category: Metallica
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-02-01
Updated: 2001-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:37:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk decided that he wanted to talk to me this morning inspired, no doubt, by Spooks' question about Jason's leaving, "Who the hell is going to protect him [Kirk] now?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled (Kirk Gen)

I'm crying. So hard I can barely see to write this. Lani's in the other room, making us some tea. She's trying to help, trying to make me feel better, but it's not working.

Jason. Jason. Jason's leaving. Jason's already gone.

This band has always been split: James and Lars, me and the bassist. In the beginning, there was Cliff, and we were so close. He told me everything, even, or maybe especially, things he wouldn't tell James and Lars. He'd come off stage dripping with sweat and grinning like a madman and tell me he'd dropped acid beforehand. He never tried to make me take a hit, but I always knew he would share if I wanted to.

Then Cliff died, and there was Jason.

Jason protected me; Jason protected all of us. He protected us from ourselves at first. He let us do everything and anything to him instead of fighting back. If he hadn't, we would have taken out our grief on each other and ourselves.

Later, when we weren't so horrible to him, he became the fan man. He'd stay out, late at night in air so cold you could barely breathe, signing autographs even past the time we couldn't anymore. We tried, oh, we tried, but for all that we're rock stars, we're still only human. Jason wasn't like us. He just kept feeding on the energy of the fans until they, too, were tired and satisfied.

And me, he protected me. We were close; how could we not be when we were the other half of the band, the ones who weren't James and Lars? We stuck together. I would drink silently and listen to him vent about how James and Lars wouldn't let us do anything. We would jam together, and that was an outlet for both of us, to play whatever we wanted, not what James and Lars wanted us to play. We protected each other, I suppose. It wasn't enough for him. He left anyway.


End file.
